KDE Usability & Productivity Initiative Coming To An End

[phoronix]

Phoronix: KDE Usability & Productivity Initiative Coming To An End

The KDE Usability and Productivity Initiative to solve various problems in the KDE software stack to make it easier to use to more individuals and to do so more efficient will be coming to an end. But other KDE goals are being envisioned and the usability and productivity elements will continue to be worked on outside of this initiative...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KDE-UP-End-Is-Near

[M@GOid]

I wished they adopted the other simpler start menu as default. It is simple and everything is right there, easy to find:



The one used now is too unpractical. You have to search in sub-menus to find options that should be available right away, like the power-off button. I believe it is the reason so many new users turn away from KDE, calling it bloated and too complicated.

[ngraham]

I agree that Kickoff is not ideal. I want to improve it: https://phabricator.kde.org/T9042 (link dead right now because phabricator.kde.org is down at the moment)

Looks like you're using a somewhat old version though. It's gotten at least a bit more attractive and space-efficient in the last few releases.

[shmerl]

I like the dashboard one the most. But it has an annoying bug - long titles are cut off, and it doesn't show any tooltips either.

[skeevy420]

I agree that Kickoff is not ideal. I want to improve it: https://phabricator.kde.org/T9042 (link dead right now because phabricator.kde.org is down at the moment)

Looks like you're using a somewhat old version though. It's gotten at least a bit more attractive and space-efficient in the last few releases.

I think @M@GOid just linked to some pictures found quickly from a Google search since most of us can't upload pictures here, only link from other sites.

While I'll agree that the newer version is somewhat better, switching from Application Launcher to Application Menu is the first change I do when installing Plasma. I've just never been a fan of that style of menu regardless of the desktop environment or OS.

[awesz]

Discover is almost getting visually pleasant as the PackageKit frontends from 10 years ago, what about making these giant fonts respect the system settings?

[MihaiBojescu]

Congratulations to the KDE team, the contributors and to Nate for bringing so many improvements to KDE Plasma

[bug77]

Nice to hear about the initiative. As a staunch KDE user, I have not noticed much (if anything) in the way of usability improvements between the current version and 5.0. In fact, the #1 annoyance in KDE (for me, anyway) is still alive and kicking.

And yes, I also set the launcher to Application Launcher, but that's more of a reflex today. Since I've learned about Alt+F2 (and later about Alt+Space), I could probably remove that from the task bar and reclaim the space. If KRunner would crash every now and then, that is.

[Baguy]

I am very glad for this initiative, as it has already made amazing changes in plasma. I really hope the next initiative is the security or wayland focus. How can one vote on the phabricator? ngraham

[aufkrawall]

ngraham

I agree that Kickoff is not ideal. I want to improve it: https://phabricator.kde.org/T9042 (link dead right now because phabricator.kde.org is down at the moment)

Please make the application search trainable by default so that most used programs show up first when typing the first characters of their names (and ordering should also make sense in general, e.g. show first the main launcher of something and only after it some sub function of it). I don't know why so many desktops lack this fundamental feature when pressing the meta key, at least by default.